MGM Resorts International (MGM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

[Audio Gap] MGM, who is just off of a company update. But before we jump into that, I would love to have you both maybe talk about the history of the business, where we've gone from when the business was first started to the business update, but let's -- before we even get into the business update, just give us a little bit of the background of the company.

Yes, sure. Okay. So thank you all for making it at unGodly hour, right? So I, as you can hear, I'm not a native American. BetMGM is a 50-50 joint venture between the best and brightest in U.S. casino land. And when I joined was the best and brightest in European online sports betting and iGaming land, MGM Resorts and then GVC now Entain. I mean the business was established from nothing. I was working at Entain at the time that the law changed here in the U.S. And I was the strategy and deal guy for Entain at the time, having been in and around the sector for about 20 years. I was an investment banker, then moved to client side, then had a range of operational responsibilities. Anyway, fast forward, law changes here. The new frontier is this U.S. sports betting and iGaming market. And it's going to be the biggest. And sure enough, 4.5 years later, it is the biggest. We'll get on to that in a bit. So we established the joint venture best of both entities to be contributed to this new thing called BetMGM. I was employee number one. Today, we are 2,500-ish full-time employees in the U.S. and abroad. And the business is -- has gone from virtually nothing to now we'll deliver $2 billion, almost $2 billion of revenue this year and the second half EBITDA positive.

And perhaps remind us what -- how you think about the 2 parent companies? What they're providing? How that relationship works? Are you totally autonomous? Do you have buy-in from either? What do you lean on from each of these?

Yes. So the guiding thoughts in the establishment of the joint venture was Entain is best-in-class product technology trading operations today and then -- today has regulated operations in 28 international jurisdictions, then it serves something like 165 countries worldwide. So the operational nows the prowess of Entain wasn't questioned and was demonstrable. So the idea was, well, they will contribute those things, tech product trading. And on the -- what we knew at the time was market access in the U.S. was going to be somehow restricted, was going to be somehow preferred and allocated towards incumbents, whatever that meant. And in the fullness of time, sure, that has been -- it's something called a tethered license. So in order to operate digitally, you needed to have some kind of either brick-and-mortar operation or some kind of time with a lottery or team or something, right? And at the time, what we thought our analysis from the European side was at the top end of eligibility with the big casino companies. Why? Biggest employees, biggest taxpayers, most political influence. Ergo makes most sense for that if market access was one of the key things that needed to be established in forming this joint venture, MGM and at the time it was -- I came as I spoke to see there's an MGM and the lottery companies and everybody. We saw eye-to-eye with MGM Resorts. We have strategically aligned. They had a terrific national brand, the -- what will then M Life, what is today, MGM rewards, the loyalty database was then around $30 million. It's now pushing $40 million. By the way, BetMGM has something to do with that, a lot to do with that. We can get into that later. And so brand market access, loyalty and one of the critical components of our differentiating strategy is omnichannel, which we'll talk about later. I suspect is omnichannel and they provided for that player in product extension and differentiation. So we're excited about that. And we also took over all the physical -- the retail sports books in all of MGM's properties. So there, the net economics of all of those come to BetMGM.

And before we get into some of those points that you made, in terms of the industry, you referenced that it's effectively now one of the biggest, if not the biggest market in the world and will continue to grow. How has it differed versus what you've seen in other parts of the world? What have you learned that when you're looking at whether it's iGaming or sports betting or the in between that makes that MGM uniquely positioned then? You gave a couple of these, but...

I did. Interesting. Okay. So the size of the market has been a positive surprise. Everybody expected it to be big, but actually, the size of it is just eye watering, particularly on the iGaming side. The iGaming side now 5 states is just eye watering. And on the sports betting side, one of the surprises has been the pace of adoption of new states. But also there is a whole new product category around same game parlay and parlays, which perhaps we can talk more about later, which has also been -- has a momentum that we haven't seen anywhere else in the world. But then, now with the benefit of hindsight, everything becomes much clearer of course. So then you step back and you say, well, why is this? Why is the online gaming market just exploded? Why is there so much interest in these -- what -- in other markets seem like quite complex parlay things. And then you look at the history of the U.S., how we got to this point. And in 2019, the year prior to COVID, 43% of the adult population in the U.S. visited a casino of sorts or casino resort of sort. That is a huge number, which talks to the entertainment and the broad appeal of these kind of destinations, but it also speaks to the social acceptance of the product category. And I think here, certainly more than Europe, it's just part of the casino gambling and gambling generally is just part of your entertainment and leisure bundle. And so there's that social acceptance component to it, which I think has been very, very supportive, certainly on the iGaming side. On the sports side, if you look at the history of sports fandom in the U.S., and you've got 25 years of season-long fantasy. We talk about daily fantasy a lot, but daily fantasy is less than 10 years old, right? We had a fantasy landscape driven initially by AOL and Yahoo. I'm sure some of us got the same accounts. And it's that training, seeing a U.S. sports event in the terms of the interaction between multiple events and the importance of how an individual player performs is the foundation for the popularity of these kind of products. So if you look at the context, you like, oh, of course, it makes sense.

Sure. So is that more people participating or more spend per person? Or is it a little bit of both?

So from our perspective, we -- so it's people participating. Yes. But in terms of the value dynamics for us as a sector. Frankly, this is a savior. Now I'll tell you why. Because we're in other countries in the world, the concept of 3-way markets, and I'll tell you what that means in a sec, 3-way markets is pretty much is pervasive. In the U.S., you really have 2-way markets. What that means is I'll give you the analogy. Outside of the U.S., soccer -- from a sports betting perspective, outside of the U.S., soccer is king. In the world of soccer, you have x scratch y. So home team wins the draw, away team wins. The fact that there is a draw, it's like having the 0 in roulette, right? It's another outcome, which means that when you distribute an overrun, when -- the rig for the house is higher because of the likelihood of that central event, the likelihood of that draw event. In the U.S., over under, spread, total, right? It's a fixed line in the sand, and you're either that way or you're that way, right? So the theoretical margin on single bets in U.S. sports because of the 2-way nature and, of course, the competitiveness of the environment is about 4.7%, around 5%, let's simplify, okay, 5% win margin. The win margin on more complex same-game parlays, can be upwards of 25%, right? So the amount of value for the house with those more complex products is much greater. And I go back to it being a savior because you put that alongside cost of participation in the U.S., cost of licensing. In Illinois, just to take your first bit, it's going to cost you $20 million. You've got to sell a lot of bits just to cover your license fee. And that's before you've taken a call to customer services, before you've employed a compliance person, before you spent $1 on marketing. So the numbers get big quickly here. And of course, this is all state-by-state. So it's you don't pay $20 million once.

And you have to have a different system in some cases for each one of those.

Yes. So same-game parlay was a surprise. Same-game parlay, we love because of the margin characteristics and of course, the engagement characteristics, like if you have 5 different things that are moving in an event, you have an emotional interest in each of those events. And so from a fan engagement perspective, that's very positive.

And on the iGaming side, is there any equivalent way to think about that space in terms of either a win rate or unique products or differentiation here versus what you've seen in other markets?

So it's interesting. The answer is no. But the financial dynamics on the iGaming side are much more favorable. So for example, slot games, slot games, your take rate to the house is fixed per game and every game is a regulated component. So in order to put a game in front of a player, it needs to have gone through a testing process and a regulatory approval process and then it's fixed. We could, in theory, dial up, dial down, but there's an approval process associated with that. So really win margin in the world of gaming is about game mix right? And win margin -- aggregate win margin in the world of gaming gross win margin is about 3%, just over 3%. Of course, it fluctuates up and out. But really, it's a brand volume for pure online, one of the thing -- one of our USPs in the world of iGaming is this world of omnichannel where we lean into the world of MGM Resorts. Now what does omnichannel mean in iGaming? One of the things we've put into the market recently is -- I talked about it a couple of days ago, is something called dual-play roulette. What is dual-play roulette? I walk into my casino and I see a table over there, and I want to go and play on my table. But hang on a second, there's this whole camera rig on top, lo and behold, 10,000 players, not the 5 players that I'm playing -- used to playing within the physical casino, 10,000 players can be, it's not that high, can be playing at the same time on the same game. And -- it's both exciting. It adds a new dimension to my physical play experience and also my -- the players online who can participate to have the different feeling of participating in a real-life game. It's almost a hybrid of a live dealer product, which is a physical offering made, it's kind of made for TV -- made for the online world. But staying with the live dealer product, our live -- -- our dual-play roulette game in the Borgata Casino in New Jersey is the most popular roulette table in that casino. Its win rate is 77% higher than the average on the floor.

So all 10,000 see it it's been red for 15 in a row, and they all go black and they all get green?

No, no, no. This is just the pure retail productivity of the table. The productivity of that table in the venues. And the point that I'm making...

That's even gone up.

It has its own gravity because it's something special. Now what we've seen interestingly is as you move from retail to digital, our digital players like faster gameplay. So our digital play -- it's often as you journey from a physical experience to a digital experience to a pure digital experience, a combination to pure, what we've seen is players who move from that -- from the floor of the casino into an online experience will often start in the product that they know. And this is -- this is -- you ask why this is important for BetMGM, and that's one of the examples of why omnichannel is helpful and powerful because of that journey. Okay, I played in my casino. Let me play the same game at home. I can do that, oh, I see, it's the same table. That's good. But then I actually want to go faster. Oh, that's another -- oh, BetMGM has got their own in-house roulette game over here, oh good. And then right next to that, there's BetMGM grand millions -- MGM grand million slot game, our #1 performing GGR slot game by far this year. And so you see the journey and why branded is important and why the journey from retail to digital makes a difference.

So on that point, maybe we'll pivot to the update that you've given, but perhaps frame before we fully get there. How the competitive landscape has evolved relative to your expectations? And then we'll go into the update and kind of key strategies from here?

Yes. The U.S. is -- one of the surprises to me was the degree of intensity of competition in the U.S. as it rolled out. And frankly, one -- the surprise to me was Ontario, which in fact we can come back to it. The degree of intensity. What hasn't been a surprise is how -- the winners take most. And we see ourselves. Today, there are really three. We see ourselves very firmly as one of those. And in fact, our commitments to investing more intensively our -- the Entain's acquisition of a sport pricing and trading business called Angstrom, our commitment to investments in product, both on sports and iGaming through the course of 2023 and as we look to the future are all focused on ensuring that leadership will be achieved.

So with that, you had the company update. What's changed since the last time you talked, maybe walk through some of the new targets you've put out there?

Right. Okay. So '23 was the year that we delivered on our commitments. Now what were those? '23, just to level set, we said as I started with we were going to achieve between $1.8 billion and $2 billion of revenue. We're going to come in at the top end of that range from a revenue perspective. We said we were going to be EBITDA positive in the second half of this year. Bear in mind, last year, the EBITDA loss -- EBITDA investment was minus 4...

Almost $450 million negative.

$450 million negative. So year-on-year improvement in EBITDA, close to $350 million. Massive, massive steps forward. We've invested in product. As I said, we've dual play more in-house games. We're now investing in omnichannel jackpots. And the speed of our digital sports app has improved, measured by using Google tools 25% faster than it was 6 months ago. We've launched something called single account, single wallet, which, frankly, for our players, allows you to travel across the U.S. state-by-state seamlessly with the same account credentials and your balance follows you. This was a big technical project. So all of those pieces really are laying the groundwork, one, to credentialize us as a team. Why? We deliver on the promises that we make. We deliver on the commitments that we make. Two, credentialize our leadership team to say, you know what? Because EBITDA positive in the second half was a choice, right?

Well, that's something we should talk about because I think a lot of traditional gaming folks or even broader consumer often when you're building a property or you're building a retail store, something like that, there's a capitalized cost. In this business, all that's expensed. So maybe talk to how you say that's a choice? Some of that is how much you invest in terms of getting new customers in? And what does that ramp look like? So maybe if you can elaborate on what you're seeing in different states? Are they all basically the same? And how has that choice ebbed and flowed.

I'll take that, I guess.

You might want to start just with the cohort build just to level set...

So the company is built on the stacking of cohorts of players that we bring in each month. And we're not a SaaS business, but in the sense of a SaaS business, you think about what's happening in here and then what the tail on that is. And we have -- look, when you think about what we invest when we say we're investing in a group of players, we're going to go out, we're going to win them. We're going to do some marketing. We're going to do some promotions. And in the early phase of life, that's the dig, as we call it, where we're investing and we're sort of sorting out. Who is going to be a long-term player and stick around and be a real money better and who's going to be what we call a sampler. So in that process, which vets out sort of over the first year of life and sometimes faster in the state, it's an investment period. So when we think about what we're going to invest in marketing to acquire new players in a given year, that group of players will only deliver 10% to 15% of revenue of the company in that year. It's really in the second year after that we've acquired them, that we end up seeing the big pop. And when we look at our cohort builds across both casino and sports, the biggest driver of growth at a given year is the players acquired in the prior year. So when we talk about choosing how we could have been, we could have done a lot more. We could have landed the plane further into the black. We could have landed it back in the red. And the question is really what we're setting ourselves up for the next year and the year after that. So it's a stacking business of cohorts, and we look at next year as a period with a number of product enhancements that have come out and that are coming out, some advanced capabilities that we're going to get in terms of omnichannel that's going to help us both on the acquisition and retention standpoint, that this is the period to put our gas down on getting new players, and it's going to pay off later. So one of the things we were joking about yesterday in the boardroom is that, it's actually -- if we can come back and say, we're going to burn more next year in investment, that's good news because we see the opportunity to invest in players that are going to build up later and drive our value higher in the future.

And do you generally think that this increased investment will be coming from growing the TAM, effectively new customers to the entire system? Or is it a -- I don't want to say a zero-sum game, but does it have to come from competitors who have also maybe spent that extra money?

We are very far from reaching that mature horizon as we saw, as I said, been in the sector for almost 20 years. What we saw in the early years of other markets, is that -- well, speak directly. We saw double-digit year-on-year revenue growth in the U.K. for about 12, 13 years. But where you don't have -- market dynamics were somewhat different. But in terms of the -- my expectation, based on what I've seen and what I see here, is that we will see a progressive deepening of adoption of -- particularly on the sports side as a consumer adoption into the mainstream. I think we, at the moment, are somewhere between 6% and 7%, I think, penetration. And if you look at the most developed digital sports markets in the world, you can get well north of 15%. So a lot more potential ahead.

Do you have to change how you think about customer acquisition costs versus the LTV as that progresses? Like, do you think that the LTV of customers is consistent? Does it go down as you go deeper? So that then change how you feel or think through marketing?

So we've long stated, in fact, this has been one of my surprises. Right at the outset, we said our long-term target that cost to acquire a player CPA to acquire a player is about $250. We still think that's a pretty good number long term, right? And so really, your -- the question really you're asking is that at some point, does the relationship between how much to buy players and how much that player is worth? Does that get screwing with subs being interesting? And what we see is that we still have a long, long ride, like the end is nowhere in sight.

Well, there's also a question of are you advantaged in any way from a CPA standpoint because of the loyalty program or the brand, things like that? And are there -- maybe going back to the update, things that you're doing differently now that will help aid that process or increase your competitive moat.

Really important questions. Thank you. Why? Because '24 is the year that we unlock Las Vegas. And why that's important and germane to this question is that recruiting a player in Vegas costs us 27% of the cost of acquiring a player in the open market. There are also more than 130% as valuable.

Lower CPA higher...

Lower -- way lower CPA, 1/3 -- less than 1/3.

So you have a 30% margin target out there long term? Is that -- can that go higher? You don't have to touch that one.

We're focused on -- what do we focus on achievement of $500 million of EBITDA in 2026 on a trajectory of this because by definition, if we get there and have invested in, as Gary described, if we get to $500 million of EBITDA in 2026 on a hardcore investment profile, Implicitly, within that number is incredible momentum because all of the players that we acquired in that year, all of their value accrues the following year. And again, by -- and this is the beauty of this business model. Your fixed costs again, by definition, having achieved $500 million of EBITDA, your fixed costs are covered. So really, then we start talking about the marginal contribution of a player cohort, which in their second year is fabulous. And it builds and it builds and it builds, which is why once you -- which is why this is a winner take most market. This is an industry where you need to be big to overcome the cost in Illinois and marketing and compliance and team. But when you do the financial dynamics of growth are just incredible.

I want to come back to the Vegas comment, but maybe Gary, on -- when you're reinvesting, you're seeing that cohort math come through. Does it ever deviate? Where does it deviate? And how can you keep an eye on it rather than waiting for a year to see if somebody slip through the cracks?

Well, the joke I make in our planning model is that we're really rolling together 40 different business plans into 1. Because each state and each product has its own dynamics. There's different tax rates. There's different ways in which the tax rate is applied against revenue. There's different dynamics of the average income in the state. So it's a question of whether we can get players more easily at an MGM touch point. So all that comes to bear, we look at that. Certainly, some states have higher average player value. Some states have lower. Some states are more into the thrill of parlay betting, which means they have higher margins, but they probably have lower handle per player. Other states are more classic 6-pack bets. So we look at that all, and we tune it out. So the joke I say is that there is no 1 metric. The model is the metric, and we're monitoring it always moving in conjunction. And depending on how different states legalize in the future, that can have an impact on our overall set of metrics at a given time. But the fundamentals that we've been expecting to see in terms of player development, time lines to profit and breakeven is all coming together as we expected. And we know there's macro retuning along the way a bit.

Steve, can I just go back to your previous question, I'm sorry. So the acquisition dynamics and the ROI of those Vegas players is one element. The role of Vegas in player retention is really important for us. Player acquisition and player retention is really important for us because those players that we acquire in Vegas invariably don't live in Vegas, right? So they're taking BetMGM home with them. And so every trip to Vegas where, frankly, BetMGM is the sports betting choice in Vegas, where, frankly, some of our -- some of the other competitors are not represented for a number of complex regulatory reasons. But that's an opportunity for us. You go to Vegas. It doesn't matter who you use at home. That's a moment to refamiliarize yourself at the moment, an opportunity for us to reintroduce ourselves to that player, and that player has a good BetMGM experience in Vegas associated with the MGM entertainment halo goes back home and says, well, I quite like this. So in terms of reactivation of players, so acquiring and retaining players, they take BetMGM home with them, reactivating players that may have never been with BetMGM or have been with BetMGM and now play with a competitor. That's a very important moment for us.

And is that customer -- or how does that customer compare and contrast to who's already in the app. So is this biggest customer obviously, they gamble, but are they more sports-heavy than, for example, in the regions? Or what do we see on the app right now?

Well, this is another dimension of why we're excited about omnichannel and the -- frankly, the emergence of Vegas as the sports destination in America. Why? And so the Chief Executive of MGM talked about the golden triangle. As are building a new baseball stadium, you've got T-Mobile, you've got Allegiant where the rate is play, the golden triangle of sports, which are frankly on the doorstep of MGM properties. In fact, I was at some weeks ago, when was it the Packers game, Packers versus Raiders at Allegiant? Walk into the stadium and more than half the stadium is green. And I'm looking at this going, how can this be? it's a 6-hour complex journey to get there, right? I looked at the weather report. Is it snowing in green, like why is everybody here.

That doesn't -- just wave those fans, by the way.

The bottom line is going to Vegas as a destination to watch your team play is always an exciting attractive proposition. And the fans in the stadium were a real-life demonstration of that truism. And that's getting stronger. I fully expect in time. We'll have an NBA team there, NHL. We've got baseballs coming. All of the pro sports will be represented. Vegas is getting stronger and stronger, and you go because your team is there and it's Vegas. And that's great for BetMGM. Because you go to BetMGM -- you go to Vegas, and I'm not sure if you've been recently, but you really feel the power of the brand. You feel that MGM is -- where MGM means something everywhere, MGM is king in Vegas. So BetMGM as part of that is just enjoys the groundswell of that brand strength.

And going back to the cohort math and everything -- it's going along that path. But clearly, your competitors are not sitting by idly and there's new competition that's coming into the space, whether it's ESPN that there's some private companies, we had Fanatics here yesterday. There's companies like Bet365. So does that change your calculus like I think from the outsider's perspective, they might say, hey, there's all this competition, your investments that you're making in the next years in response to that. So maybe if you could help clarify both the dynamic in terms of competition and then the investments that you're making?

Yes. Look, our focus is maximizing value for shareholders, right? And the competitive dynamics ebb and flow, we've seen of some concerted attacks along the way. Frankly, we know, we understand how to acquire players, how to nurture players, how to retain players, and we understand the value of our cohorts. And we're investing behind an improved product both in iGaming and sports betting. And we're investing for growth. And we've also made a commitment not to take more capital unless something new that we don't seem today comes up, more states coming more quickly or something on the M&A side, which is really just groundbreaking and would supercharge our trajectory. We're not going to take more capital from our shareholders. And so we are going to make the absolute most of the resources that we have. And frankly, look, having $2 billion of revenue and meaningful many hundreds of millions of dollars of contribution to reinvest in the business, I think, gives us the ability to separate from the trailing pack.

And this might be a question for Gary, but on the path to $500 million from this year and next year, what are some of the assumptions that you need to get there in terms of whether it's market growth, market share or flow-through margins?

There are things that need to be changed on the path. It's really the player values and the number of players we get. And player values can come in a couple of different ways. It can be expansion of the relationship we have with some existing customers that don't give full share of wallet to us and some of it is going to be on new customers that we develop. But we look at player metrics in terms of retention and value and cost of acquisition. And so nothing fundamentally changes in how we look at the business. But obviously, the more we win and the more we retain, the faster we get there. But I think we have a very, very reasonable and rational assumptions that get us to there. And again, it's a choice in some way, right? We could do more sooner and we don't want to, as we believe in the business model and we believe in our ability to acquire the customers, and we're excited about the things that Adam has been talking about.

Profit sooner, yes.

Are there any costs that will fall away as we progress, things that you have to invest in now outside of just promotions, but thinking about marketing, technology or otherwise? I mean maybe you can loop in Angstrom and how that's being leveraged by the business and how integrated it is?

Just on the cost front, I mean, certainly, we see the standard leverage benefits as a percentage of revenue coming. Next year, it will be similar than with the real benefits of scale coming the year after that. But on the greater like, there's no costs that magically fall away from the rocket ship and go back to earth.

And in fact, one of the things that we've taken an active decision to take on more cost actually is in the area of product, sports product. I mentioned that Entain has acquired Angstrom. We want -- we will be contributing to -- for a period, we will be contributing to some of those Angstrom operating costs. And quite rightly, we will BetMGM -- Angstrom our U.S. specialist organization. So they're focused on U.S. sports. And so we will be enjoying the lion's share of the impact of that business. And also selfishly, I want to make sure that we have -- that BetMGM is driving day-to-day decision-making, prioritization decisions. Because ultimately, we will be the beneficiary of all that output. So contribution to Angstrom cost is an addition. Also, we, with Entain, are investing more in dedicated resources to focus on specific BetMGM problems. And I say problems, problems as -- It's not problems. It's -- this -- there's an extra click in this journey. How do we restructure the [indiscernible]? How do we restructure the journey to take out a click to make it feel more intuitive? Rather than being -- rather than scheduling that and prioritizing that against some other initiatives, I want to be able to respond to that in real time, make sure that clicks out in the next sprint in the next release in 2 weeks' time. It's that kind of cadence. We are investing in more bespoke, more committed resources to solve some of our priorities immediately.

We're almost out of time. And there's actually 3 questions we're supposed to be asking everybody. These, you've already touched on to a degree, but I'll just do rapid fire. One is, as you think about the demand environment next year, relative to this year, do we think that it's going to accelerate, stay the same, decelerate from where we are today? And what are the puts and takes, I think, for...

Two ways to answer the question. On a like-for-like basis, starting point observation. We are seeing no weakness in player value bet size. We're not seeing any impact today. Of course, outlook, you've got people on both sides of the aisle, right? So I won't take a position on that. On a like-for-like basis, that may have an impact. On the positive side, we have North Carolina coming, there's positive news about Georgia, Minnesota and Missouri. So our TAM is growing in -- certainly on the sports side, and we are seeing some positive legislative movement in a handful of states. So we think there will be more addressable markets to offset potential headwinds if there are.

And you've already talked about margins. So last one would just be on capital allocation, which maybe you can tie those in. But how are you thinking about capital allocation. Obviously, it's number one is investing in the business. But as we move further along that path, how do you think about your priorities?

I mean I think we're in such a window, as Adam said, with new states coming, it's going to be all about player development for the near horizon.

Great. Well, we are out of time. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm not sure who's next, but thank you.